Tiaan, consumed by the thought of flight, the ultimate secret, hardly noticed her going.
She spent all the following morning practising with the construct, bringing hand and eye into coordination. It was more difficult than it seemed, especially under the pressure of time, though after a couple of hours she could manoeuvre it without too much risk.
She went back over everything the Aachim had taught her of geomancy. The more she compared that to what Nunar’s book had taught her, the clearer it was that someone was wrong. The construct did not seem designed to detect, much less draw upon, the strong forces. It used a weak field she had never bothered with.
A few hours later, Malien came down the stairs, exhausted. Tiaan told her what she had learned. ‘Maybe Nunar was wrong, and the strong forces do not exist.’
Malien sat on a carved bench and closed her eyes.
After several minutes, Tiaan said, ‘Malien?’
‘What? Oh, give me a look at the book.’
Tiaan showed her the passages in The Mancer’s Art.
Malien looked thoughtful. ‘I think I know how to test your theory. Wait here.’
She returned with two sheets of a glassy mineral somewhat like mica, though brittle. Laying one sheet over the other, she held them up to the light and rotated the top sheet. At one point it went black. ‘Make yourself a set of goggles from these. Put the goggles on, then use the amplimet to envision the field.’
Tiaan did so, and as soon as she put them on, the field streamed all around her.
‘Rotate the upper lenses until they go black,’ said Malien. ‘Now what do you see?’
‘Nothing. The field has completely disappeared.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No.’
‘Concentrate, as though you’re searching for a distant field.’
‘Still nothing.’
‘You’re too tense. Relax. Just let it flow.’ Malien’s hands went around her head, over the goggles.
Tiaan tried to relax. One of the lenses moved, allowing in a multi-coloured loop of the field. She moved it back to the dark position and saw a white-hot cross made of three planes intersecting at right angles. She cried out, the lenses slipped and the cross vanished. And then the truth came to her.
‘I saw it!’ she cried. ‘The strong forces do exist.’ Tiaan began to laugh.
‘What is it?’ Malien said, anxiously.
Tiaan took particular pleasure in telling her. ‘Vithis can’t be using the strong forces. The Aachim don’t know how.’
‘I don’t understand. Come, sit down. Tell me what the matter is.’
‘The Aachim always act so superior. To their mind they are superior, and make sure everyone knows it. Yes, you too, Malien. But they’re not even using the node field, just little local fields.’
‘Stress-fields,’ Malien said crossly. ‘They’re strong on Aachan but weak here.’
‘They don’t know as much as we do,’ Tiaan chortled.
‘Beware pride!’ snapped Malien, nettled.
‘Or false pride,’ Tiaan retorted. ‘The Aachim could never have made the construct fly. Flight requires power that only the strong forces can provide, as well as the ability to see them.’
‘Once the secret is out, they will soon learn. So, are you saying you can make the construct fly?’
‘I’m prepared to try.’
‘Try very hard.’
‘Is something the matter?’
‘The amplimet is still communicating with the Well, in spite of all my efforts. The Well is drawing power from somewhere and rapidly unfreezing. I can’t allow that to happen.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Either the amplimet leaves here, or I’ll have to destroy it, whatever the consequences.’
TEN
‘No!’ cried Tiaan. ‘You can’t.’ ‘Do you think I want to?’ said Malien. ‘No one knows better than I do, how precious it is. I know what destroying it would do to you, too. But should the Well unfreeze and break the bonds that hold it here, the consequences would be catastrophic.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Possibly, no more Tirthrax – city or mountain.’
‘How long do I have?’
Malien hesitated. ‘I’ve sent a skeet to Stassor, but no Aachim could get back here in less than two months. The construct would be no quicker – the country is too rugged for a hovering craft. But with flight, it could be there in a week. I sense that we’re close to uncovering the last secret of the construct. Dare I risk it? Come upstairs. I’m going to my eyrie. I need to think.’
Tiaan followed. Malien walked out the opening and stood staring down at the glacier. Tiaan watched, hoping and praying she would come up with something. Destroying the amplimet would surely drive her insane. To miss the chance of flight would be almost as bad.
Malien came running back, her cloak flapping behind her. Tiaan held her breath.
‘You have until tomorrow,’ said Malien. ‘I believe I can hold the Well that long. If you haven’t found the answer by then, we must come to a decision: to take the amplimet away, or destroy it. And I dread what will happen if it leaves here – whose hands it will fall into. The choice almost makes itself.’
‘Please,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’ll take it. To destroy it would be to destroy myself. Though I don’t know where to go.’
‘In that case, I may have to come with you. Get to work and I’ll do the same, and tomorrow I’ll decide what is for the best.’
Tiaan studied the strong forces through her goggles. She had to know them perfectly before she could tailor the controller to them, and even then they would be deadly.
The hours raced by. She felt that she was making no progress at all. Malien came and went a number of times during the day, looking ever more careworn. Time was running out.
‘No luck?’ she asked that night.
‘No.’ Tiaan was exhausted too, but that was due to her own failure. ‘How about you?’
‘It’s holding, for the moment. Let me have a look down below.’ Malien went down into the construct. A good while later she came up with the black box in her hand. ‘This surely has to be the key.’
‘It isn’t connected to anything.’
‘The original must have been.’
‘Then why didn’t the Aachim’s mancery reconstruct it?’
‘Perhaps the vital parts were no longer there.’ Malien seemed to be looking right through Tiaan to the far wall. She often appeared lost in another world, or a distant time. Or perhaps she was holding the Well from afar.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Tiaan.
‘I hardly know myself. I’m thinking as I go. The original construct was destroyed by Yggur’s blast –’
‘Completely?’
‘There’s little in a construct to burn, but its parts would have fused. The crystals commonly used in the Art would not melt, though they may have shattered. Traces would remain, enough for Aachim metalmancers to reconstruct what was there. And yet …’
‘What?’ said Tiaan.
Malien looked frustrated. ‘I don’t know. Rulke’s construct flew. These are as exact copies as could be made, but they cannot fly. What did Vithis miss? What have I?’
Tiaan prised the top off the black box, which contained metal coils and shaped pieces of magnetic iron, as well as a number of evenly spaced ceramic plates on which were mounted rows of metal sockets. She held the box up to her eye. ‘There are dozens of tiny little holes in the back.’
Malien raised the box to the light. ‘Fifty-four of them. I wonder what they’re for?’
‘Perhaps it gets hot inside and they let the hot air out.’
‘They’re too small.’ Malien counted the metal sockets. ‘Also fifty-four pairs. That can’t be an accident.’
‘They’re meant to hold something.’
‘Whatever it was, all were the same size and shape.’
‘Small crystals?’ Tiaan said doubtfully.